Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutSPAC.2023.0628.MinutesTOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE FOUNTAIN HILLS STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION June 28, 2023 A Regular Meeting of the Fountain Hills Strategic Planning Advisory Commission was convened at 16705 E. Avenue of the Fountains in open and public session at 4:01 p.m. Members Present: Chairman Patrick Garman: Vice Chairman Geoff Yazzetta; Commissioner Jill Keefe; Commissioner Bernie Hoenle; Commissioner Phil Sveum Attended Telephonically: Commissioner Kevin Beck Members Absent: Commissioner Cynthia Magazine Staff Present: Deputy Town Manager David Trimble; Executive Assistant Angela Padgett -Espiritu Audience: No members of the public were present. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 28, 2023, STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING Post -Production File Town of Fountain Hills Strategic Planning Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes June 28, 2023 Transcription Provided By: eScribers, LLC Transcription is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. Page 1 of 26 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 28, 2023, STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING GARMAN: Okay. I'm going to call to order the strategic planning advisory commission meeting for June 238th, 2023, for the Town of Fountain Hills. So we're going to start with roll call. Angela, could you help me out with that? PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Absolutely. Thank you. Chair Garman? GARMAN: Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Vice Chair Yazzetta? YAZZETTA: Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Commissioner Beck? BECK: Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Thank you. Commissioner Hoenle? HOENLE: Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Commissioner Keefe? KEEFE: Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Commissioner Magazine? And Commissioner Sveum? SVEUM: Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: We have a quorum. GARMAN: All right. Excellent. Thank you all for making time to come to the commission meeting so close to the July 4th holiday, in the middle of summer here in Fountain Hills. So we're going to start off. Now we're down to agenda item 4. So today, I think, I'm going to start all the way with Dave. It looks like he has some things he wants to put out. But we're going to do reports by commissioners and the town manager, and we're going to start with Dave to my far right. TRIMBLE: Sounds good. Thank you, Chairman. Just a couple of little items. I'm here again pinch-hitting for Rachael Goodwin, our interim town manager. She had a vacation that was planned a year in advance. So she Page 2 of 26 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 28, 2023, STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING is doing that in Colorado. And the only other thing is just the council wrapped up their business for the next couple of months, for the summer, last week or the week before. So they'll be back again in August. So I think that's about all I can report. GARMAN: Awesome. Thank you very much. Kevin, I know you're online. I'll throw it over to you for any comments you'd like to make. BECK: Thanks. None tonight. Just listening. Thank you. GARMAN: All right. Thanks for attending in the evening, back there in Indiana. And we really appreciate it. Right. Jill? BECK: Sure thing. KEEFE: I've been very heads down with the Fountain Hills Leadership Academy, making sure that we have a great program to offer the new class coming in. We are adding a light leadership curriculum to the program that I think is going to be a nice asset to it. Besides that and our business, that's consumed this Commissioner's energy. GARMAN: Bernie? HOENLE: I'm going to read this one because it's still work in progress and it's just a short paragraph. We gave our out brief to a working session before the last town council meeting from the citizen advisory streets committee. So the big question, I'm sure, that's in front of everybody's mind is what's it going to cost us. So I'm going to read this section to make sure that I get it correct. And the briefing and the report are on the Internet, so you can look it up. "The citizen streets committee recommends a comprehensive fix -all -now program that requires an additional $50 million in funds, including intersection improvements. This program aims to improve the street network to a pavement", it's called a PCI, "pavement condition index of 70, the threshold level, ensuring that existing 2.125 million that's in the budget will be a source that is sufficient for further maintenance. The proposed amount considers the allocation of nearly $8 million in the federal COVID Page 3 of 26 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS TUNE 28, 2023, STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING relief funds already directed to the town council for street repairs." So basically, that's the summary at very high level. We went through all the details that were done during the analysis by RAS, which is the current team on contract. And we visited streets. We talked to individuals. The team was comprised of about 14 individuals from the town, ranging from folks with backgrounds in planning and all the way to the technical side of the business where people are career pavement and roads engineers. So it was an extremely interesting group. It was supposed to take about 6 months, it took us a little over 20 months, and I'm sure there's going to be some more work to do after the council gets back together. Thank you. GARMAN: Wow, 20 months. That's a lot of time. Thanks, Bernie, for that report. I'm going to move on, then, to my left. Geoff? YAZZETTA: Nothing to report this time. Thank you. GARMAN: Phil? SVEUM: Nothing to report. GARMAN: Okay. So we're going to move on then to agenda item number 5. If you remember, we actually have two months' worth of meetings to approve. So we're going to start off with the regular meeting minutes from the April 26th meeting, 2023. So I'll note there's any motions on the table with respect to April's minutes? Is there any motions to approve the minutes? YAllETTA: I move to approve. KEEFE: Second. GARMAN: We have a second. Any discussion on the minutes from the April meeting? None being heard, we'll move on to the vote, then. So all in favor to approve the minutes from the April meeting as written and as given to us in our packet, say aye. ALL: Aye. Page 4 of 26 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 28, 2023, STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING GARMAN: Those opposed say nay. BECK: Aye. GARMAN: It sounded unanimous to me, Angela. So thank you all very much. The minutes are approved. 5o we're going to move on now to consideration of possible action agenda number 6, which is approval of the minutes of the regular meeting from May 24th. And as I was at the meeting on the 24th and I was not at the meeting on April -- I did read all of the minutes for both meetings. Chief Ott was great, by the way, just going back to the April meeting. That was great reading. And I also appreciate Amanda very much coming for the main meeting; I'll squeak that in there. So is there any motions or comments on the minutes for our May meeting? Any motions on the table for approval for the minutes in May? HOENLE: I move to approve. KEEFE: Second. GARMAN: All right. We have a second. Okay. So general discussion? Any discussion on the minutes from May? Going once. Twice. Sold. So the minutes for -- well, excuse me. Let's all vote here. All in favor of approving the minutes in May? Sorry. Say aye. ALL: Aye. BECK: Aye. GARMAN: Those opposed say nay. Okay. Unanimous. Thank you all very much for approving the minutes. So that's April and May's minutes are approved. All right. So moving on now to number 7. If you looked in the minutes -- or not in the minutes, in the packet that was sent out, I wanted to utilize this meeting to talk about next year, to talk about the future. So there was a time last month where, this month, we were looking at having David Pock here to talk about finances and -- who else was going to come back now? There was somebody else. David and -- Page 5 of 26 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 28, 2023, STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING PADGETT-ESPIRITU: And John. GARMAN: John. That's right. John Wesley. And neither one of them could attend this meeting. So when I found that out, I started working on a presentation to stimulate discussion on the future for this commission, specifically over the next year. So this goes -- I have it out, you'll see, until the mythical approval of the next plan. But I really want us to look at the year to come. So let's -- as I start this, let's -- hey, it works. So SPAC history. And by the way, I want this to be kind of informal, so again, if you turn on your light, if you kind of raise your hand, get my attention, and you want to comment, that's all it takes for us to have a discussion. The history we need to develop, right? Over time we need to understand where the SPAC has been. 5o over the last couple of days, I was able -- thank you very much, Angela -- to get the plans, all of the plans that have been approved here in Fountain Hills going back to, we think, 2005 -- right? -- all the way up until March 17th, 2022, which was the latest iteration. So we do have all of those plans that we'll be able to disseminate to the commissioners to look at. Just so you know, the past SPAC commissions have had workshops to develop their plans. They've done surveys, both administered by the town or administered by a volunteer group called Vision Fountain Hills. Some of the meetings in the past were sporadic. Back a while ago, they used to suspend some meetings in-between the plans being developed. So I just put sporadic meetings. And just so you know, there was no implementation oversight. And I hesitate to say oversight. Let's say implementation monitoring by the commission. That is something that we just instituted over the last year with Grady's help, the former town manager here. But I think has been very, very successful. So all this page is supposed to let you know is, we're gathering a history of the SPAC. It's not complete but as we go into next year, I think all of us will have much more information. You know electrons, if you want to print it out into a binder, but we'll have a history from all of the strategic plans that's been developed. Page 6 of 26 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 28, 2023, STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING I'll leave it there -- before I move on to the next slide, does anybody have any comments that they'd like to talk about as far as the history of the SPAC and things that they think might be helpful to know from the past, that will help guide us into the future? Bernie? HOENLE: So we did, on a couple of different instances, group in subcommittees to work on specific topics, including going to other town meetings, like in Scottsdale or Paradise Valley or Chandler, where they're going through the planning sessions. And they invited us in readily. Like, if we say we went to Chandler, we're working on a plan, they said, welcome, come in and see what you're looking at. And some things were extremely similar to what we're doing and some were totally different, like, especially in Scottsdale, where they're looking at planning to go vertical. Just because of land masses in the different city areas and they're looking at transportation, they're looking at utilities, and they're looking at housing. And if you just go look in Tempe, they're doing some of the same things. So the population masses swayed some of the things that they're doing as far as planning goes, but the process was still the same. Getting groups of citizens, doing surveys, getting a litmus test of the interest. So I thought that was pretty good because we were doing the same things here in our community and tailoring it to what we needed. GARMAN: Thanks, Bernie. And Jill, your light's on. Did you have a comment? KEEFE: Not on purpose. GARMAN: Not on purpose? Okay. Thanks. Okay. So the history is a work in progress, and we'll continue to build and try to make that information available. So just know that we'll try to, like, tip you off that, hey, look, in the packet this month is going to be the strategic plans. Or we'll have Angela send it out to us so that you can all review it. And this is all to give us a background as we launch into really, kind of, putting -- you say, pen to paper, but fingers to keyboard, going into the next year. Page 7 of 26 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 28, 2023, STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING Okay. So thanks for that, Bernie. And I added that at the end too on the way forward. We'll revisit that. This is what I want everybody to look at, what we did last year. I tried to be fancy and color coordinated. Don't look at the color coordination too hard because some of them are probably a little bit more than one topic. But this lets you see where we've been over the last year and the topics that we covered in this commission, the people we had come and talk to us from the town and from outside the town too. So I wanted to start -- I'm going to start -- I have started, as you can see, keeping track of this as we go forward so that we can easily look back if something -- if we have a memory, if we have a thought and we want to go back, we have those. Whether -- Angela has those documentation; I keep all of these too, of course, when they come out. So we can actually see with explicit detail and the translation what folks talked about, at least for the last few meetings. So cataloguing what we've done as we go forward, another initiative, I think, is important. Any comments over the last year and you can do that now, you can let me know at any time. But as we look at topics to go forward, please use this as a reference; let me know, and we'll try to get other things onto the schedule going forward, as Cynthia says, for us to become familiar with strategic topics going forward. Okay. Any comments on this? All right. Thank you. Okay. Moving forward. This is a timeline that I put together. I know it's not the -- I'm not the best at making slides, but I think it conveys where we are right now and what were going to embark on over the next year. So March 17th, 2022, was when the last plan was ratified, approved by the council here at Fountain Hills. Over the last year, which is 2022-2023, we've gone through implementation monitoring, where the town has come to us, the people that have responsibility for some of the various tasks in the current plan let us know how that's going. And we've actually had some successes this year, where some on the current street plan have been approved and checked off. Familiarization of new topics: we just talked about that. But that's what we did over Page 8 of 26 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 28, 2023, STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING the last year, whether it's the Discovery Center and the changes happening with the fire department, et cetera, et cetera. So that's what we did this year. So we've gone from March 17, to where we sit now. The next one now, number 3, kind of on my list. I put a plus by it. If you see the plus by strategic priorities, that means I'm adding that on to implementation and familiarization. So I do think that we're going to continue. This is cumulative with implementation, monitoring, familiarization of new topics, as we can get people in to come and talk to us about things. And we're going to work on, I call it on the next slide, reaffirming strategic priorities. They might change, but that is going to be helpful for us to look at what the — and then we call them strategic priorities, right? Some people call them pillars. I've heard of that. They're the big, really topical issues, like infrastructure, you name the example. But they're very high level that underpin the whole plan. I wanted to spend energy on that this coming year, quite a bit of energy on us working together, kind of synchronizing our commission to get opinions and thoughts from the Town of Fountain Hills, whether it be private citizens of Fountain Hills, governmental folks in Fountain Hills, volunteers like us, service organizations -- you name it -- folks who represent either with other groups of Fountain Hills citizens or individual Fountain Hills citizens, so that we are not just coming up with strategic pillars on our own; we are informed by what the town is thinking at the time. So over the next year I was hoping -- and the plan is when we sit here next June at this meeting, getting ready to adjourn for a summer break in July, we have a high degree of certainty what the strategic priorities, the pillars are going to be for the next plan. I do want to emphasize that these are not in stone, right? Up to a certain point we're going to be able to change things. But I think it will help us from year to year going forward to know what the strategic priorities going forward over the next year are. So implementing goals. The goal, as we said, next year, to have strategic priorities. I'm not putting a definition on those. I don't know how many were going to have; I don't know what they are. I'd really like to open it up and let you all go out and experiment and talk and investigate within the tow and then come back and enlighten us. And at Page 9 of 26 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 28, 2023, STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING the end of the year, we should have a document written down with those strategic priorities, which will then funnel into the next year, where -- the current plan calls them signature strategies, but they are more lower level strategies. They're more pinpointed. They're more specified. And then those signature strategies are the ones that we can assign metrics and measurables to in the final year of the plan so that we are going to end up with the final year of planned development. So you're going to end up with strategic priorities, very large infrastructure -type things. You're going to have our regular, I would call them, strategies after that, and then supporting tasks. We call them supporting tasks right now, but those are the ones with metrics, timelines associated with them. And just so you know, generally, I'm used to those three layers, the top, middle, and then measurables. But I've seen two levels; I've seen five. So again, I don't want to pin us down. I'm just using what we have now as an example. But this gets us through, then, to the last year where, in my experience, once we have a plan that we think is great and we have a draft, we show it to the council, and they'll probably make changes to it and probably want to edit it and make some changes. And usually they're the ones that are nearest and dearest to our hearts and we have to swallow really hard. But that's generally over the last year, we continue to do some editing, make it look pretty, readable, all of those kind of things, socialize it, and then submit it for approval to the council and go through that process. And that, I think, will probably, generally, take six months to a year to complete, depending on how things are in that environment. Okay. It's a lot of talking by me. That's the timeline. Do you guys want to comment on the timeline right now, and then the next slide we're going to talk about how we get there over the next year? So this is from now till 2027. The next slide is going to be kind of what Bernie was talking about, 2023 to 2024, how do we get to the strategic priorities over the next year? Okay. Thank you. Jill? KEEFE: Thanks for that. I love a timeline. But I wanted to make sure I understood what Page 10 of 26 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 28, 2023, STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING you said. Is the council's fingerprints on this? Is the first time that the council puts fingerprints on this in the socialization part or are we giving them checkpoints after every phase? GARMAN: We're giving them checkpoints annually. KEEFE: Okay. So strategic -- GARMAN: And if you look-- KEEFE: -- priorities will have a checkpoint and -- GARMAN: Well, if you look at the next page, when we come up with some of those -- I know I put it at the end. But they have a retreat every year. So we could either talk in an open meeting forum, which is not the most constructive, but sometimes they have executive kind of working groups and sometimes they have a retreat every year in, like, February where we can go -- commissions can go and provide what we're up to, and they can give us direct feedback. KEEFE: Okay. Great. GARMAN: So. KEEFE: Thank you. GARMAN: Yeah. I guess annually is the term. All right. Comments, please. I did a lot of talking. Phil? SVEUM: We haven't seen the previous plans, but as you have reviewed them, how have they changed over the years, as far as the strategic priorities are concerned? GARMAN: So infrastructure has been in all the ones I've seen. I think I've seen three out of four that I've read. Infrastructure has always been there. Economics has always been there, economic development. And I saw environment also plays very strongly, and health, welfare, and safety. Those are the ones I've seen in the last few -- going back to 2010. I haven't reviewed 2005. But then they have -- like, some of the plans might have five, six strategic priorities. So they add civic responsibility -- was one. Civility was one back in the day. Demographics was one. So usually there's that core, that infrastructure, economics, and then they're added on some to add character, I think. All right, thanks. Page 11 of 26 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 213, 2023, STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING Geoff? YAllETTA: It's been my understanding that the previous SPAC commissions would issue a plan, it would get approved, and the commission would then go dormant for a period of time until it was time to start working on the next iteration of the plan. So it's just my opinion and observation that by continually having meetings and by hearing from town staff, we all continue to immerse ourselves in what the town is up to; we can see things that are implemented on a day, monthly, annual basis. And I think it just gives us a bigger toolbox when it comes time, as we move through this timeline, through 2023, at present, to 2027, to come up with a more robust plan for the future. So I think this is -- we're firing on all cylinders here on the commission, so. GARMAN: All right. Any other comments? Okay. So a timeline that I'll continue to adjust and we can all continue to comment on. But generally, like Jill said, love a good timeline, at least. So this is the last slide but the one I thought would provoke the most discussion and the one that I do want your feedback on. So I put reaffirm strategic priorities, develop strategic priorities, investigate -- whatever the word is you want to put in front of them. But this is the development of strategic priorities over the next year. In other words, that's what I wanted like to focus us on over the next year. So how do we do that? There's different ways. We can do it as a group every month and talk about it. We can break down into smaller groups and take on smaller items, tasks. But remember, we've done that before, successfully, in the past. But remember when we break down into smaller groups, then those groups of two or three of us will report back every month. They have a topic that they are working on, and then they will report back to the full commission their progress. So we've done that in the past. I've put several --there's seven of us; we can't have -- I think four is the magic number, right? I'm looking at Dave and Angela. Four, I think, is the quorum, right? So that's the open meetings laws for Arizona. So two works well, and we can have three in a group, but we can't have four. Right? Because then we're doing regular business as a quorum. Page 12 of 26 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 28, 2023, STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING So that's why, three times two, we've done that before with the chair kind of floating and helping, being part of maybe all the groups. Two three -person groups with the chair floating. And then the other one is a little more problematic, but two times two, two groups of, like, three in which nobody could really add to those groups because then it would be four. And there might be some unassigned members too that can't participate. So just putting that out there for you to think about how we can split up into work groups in the corning year. And if we split up in to work groups, what's the task that we want to accomplish to get to the strategic priorities or pillars at the end of the year? I put some of that down at the bottom, again, just to stimulate. These are things that we've done in the past, things that we might want to do that haven't been done before. I just titled it, "ways to garner citizen input". But you know, in a democracy the biggest thing you need is the consent of the governed, right? And so we really need the opinion of the citizens of Fountain Hills. So when we say, hey, it's really important, this is one of our overriding strategic principles or plan, somebody's going to say, why or how do you know that? And we need to be able to say, well, this is the homework that we did in the town. So looking down through those -- and I'm going to ask for you all's input on other ideas -- I have that underlined here. Addressing our nonprofits or our service organizations in the town, either a group of us go to the meeting and ask them what they think -- we can also invite some of their leadership. I'm talking like the Rotary Club or the VFW or the different other -- lots of those clubs here in Fountain Hills -- the Leadership Academy. Jill? Sorry. Let's go with Geoff -- sorry -- can come and talk to us as well, or we can go talk to them and to kind of get a pulse on what they're thinking, because they represent a group of people in the town. Surveys, of course. The surveys that we'd done in the past, varying degrees of success. I will say people talk about surveys. The ones I'd been associated with, there is significant amount of work involved in doing your own survey. So I always like to see surveys that already exist. I know the town did a survey last year. Angela was able to give that to Page 13 of 26 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 28, 2023, STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING me, and I think maybe Bo Larson will be able to present that to us when we come back. So that's a survey that was just done last year on what the town is thinking. And we've done our own surveys through Vision Fountain Hills before. When I say, "our own", the SPAC has asked this volunteer group to do surveys as well. Workshops: The SPAC has done workshops in the past. So a work group could be in charge of doing a workshop at the community center or wherever and inviting certain people from the town, random or town leaders or whoever that gets -- anybody that shows up and doing a workshop to try to distill some strategic priorities from a workshop. Again, I mentioned the council. I want to make sure that we're touching base with them. They do a retreat every year. They have executive sessions. I want to make sure that we're engaging with the council in the best way possible. But then the town staff is something else. The town staff has been here a while, and they definitely have ideas on what's important and opinions of what's important. We could ask the town manager to participate or be in the town -staff -sensing type session and walk them through it as well. And then, something that I put in there as well is we have at least two of the big, big fairs, right? Town events. And I know there's booths; the town has a booth in all of those. I don't know if we be part of that where we have somebody in the booth who just talks to people. Maybe has some type of handwritten survey that we administer to them and let them fill out or we just write down as we talk to people. Just a way to talk to random people in town that might be attending the different fairs. Okay. Those are all the ones I put in bubbles. So what I would ask is to get your thoughts going forward on those two things, splitting into groups all together or in smaller groups to do different tasks. And then, at the bottom, what kind of tasks do you think are important, doable, and would be fruitful over the next year? All right. I'm going to start with my left. Phil? SVEUM: I think there's one area that's missing here, is social media. GARMAN: Yeah. Page 14 of 26 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 28, 2023, STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING SVEUM: There's probably five different that I'm, I guess, on, neighborhood groups in Fountain Hills, business community, Friends in the Hill, whatever. I mean, there's at least five. And no one's very shy about providing their opinion about anything. And obviously, you have to take some of it with a grain of salt, I guess. But I think there's also ways to utilize those platforms for outreach, for a significant number of areas in question at a very little or no cost. And it's all unscientific, of course, but I think you do -- you're out in the major audience of the community. And it's not age -- it's not young. I think it gives a very strong cross-section. In fact, the younger people are probably not on those particular Fountain Hills pages. So I think it's certainly a way, in this day and age, to solicit opinions of anything going on in our town. GARMAN: Do you think that's something that we could assign a work group to find ways to engage social media and put our message out and try to get something back? SVEUM: Yeah. Absolutely. I think it's a matter of sitting on and ask -- and, I guess, getting some counsel on how to conduct that type of a survey on social media. And I -- yes, I do — I think perhaps a couple of people putting their heads together and just talking about questions, areas of interest, and maybe the pillars already that are established and more, that have been from the past. That's why I was asking about what else had been in that category before. But I think there's a lot of opinions that could be easily garnered from that type of platform use. GARMAN: That's great. I mean, that is, like, awesome. You can tell I didn't write that down. That should have been one of the first ones. But yeah. And I'll create a slide just to distill something like this and with all of the kind of strategic pillars -- did the lights just change? YAllETTA: Street lighting go on here? GARMAN: Okay. Maybe that's a cue. YAllETTA: Saving electricity. KEEFE: Yeah. GARMAN: Yeah, nobody's moving around, I guess. A slide with all of the strategic priorities or all of the pillars since the first plan. I think Page 15 of 26 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 28, 2023, STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING that will be useful to put it all on a slide so we can look at them. I think somebody just needs to run around the room and -- KEEFE: Yeah. GARMAN: I'm kidding. KEEFE: (Indiscernible) that. GARMAN: Geoff, you're on board? YAZZETTA: To Phil's point, I had overlooked social media, and I think I'm the youngest person on the commission here. Social media was instrumental in us getting the word out for the upcoming Leadership Academy and just promoting the application process. So not only can we distribute surveys far and wide through social media, but we can also promote things like a workshop or any other thing where we're going to be getting people's feedback. So I think that's great avenue and can reach -- I think one of those Facebook groups has 20,000, 30,000 people that are a part of it, and I'm guessing it's people that currently live in Fountain Hills and outside of Fountain Hills. So we'll have to find a way to filter the people that are not residents. Maybe it's something as simple as just putting in, what ZIP code do you live in? 85268, hopefully. But yeah, I think that's a good way to leverage just getting the word out far and wide. So yeah. GARMAN: Awesome. Bernie? HOENLE: A couple of things I think about, including when we had talked previously with Vision Fountain Hills. They were very active at the time. I'm not sure what the status is right now. But other organizations or agencies around town, like McDowell Mountain Park, they have a ton of different events, invite people in that we could benefit economically from knowing about some of those things going on. They're going to build a nature center out there. They've got some building plans, and I know that Rachael's been talking with them about some of the things they're doing and just talking to the tribal council of the Yavapai Nation. I mean, they surround us, and they're involved in quite a few things that we're doing, and they give us a bunch of money back to the Page 16 of 26 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 28, 2023, STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING town, to organizations too, that we benefit from. And then there's always opportunities -- and we have done it in the past -- is talk to the schools and the chamber. And what we can do with the information we get is a little bit different than what, probably, some of the organizations, but we need to at least get an understanding of what they're doing and what they're heading towards. Sort of like the work -- I wouldn't necessarily call it a workshop -- it was a day over at community center where everybody came in and put red dots on big sheets over there and put down what their interests were. It will be nice to get some sort of feedback. Did they learn anything from it, how to do it or how not to do it, or what was the main agenda out of that thing? And then, it had been talked about in the past, and I did not see anything on it, but we were talking about trying to organize all of the plans from the town so that we could, one, deconflict anything that's out there, but two, to make sure that we are heading in a similar direction. Because you got the general plan, you've got the active transportation plan, you've got the economical develop plan, you've got an environmental plan, you've got our strategic plan, you got a community services, parks, trails, and recreation master plan, and we've got a lot of different plans, and it's a little difficult to tell people to go look at all these different plans. So how do we either differentiate ourselves from those plans or be part of them and have references in them? So is there some way that we can build on the capability to collaborate? So those are just a couple of random thoughts. GARMAN: And remember, we still have the -- I called it familiarization work. We still have people come in and brief us on what's going on as well, like, some of the town plans. I know Amanda has said she's going to come back and talk about that. So it's the difference between -- and we have to decide if it's okay for somebody to come in and give us a brief from the town on the general plan and the economic plan, or we need to split off into a workgroup and study it and bring that back ourselves, right, to the commission. All right. Thanks. Those are great things, good comments. Page 17 of 26 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 28, 2023, STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING Jill? KEEFE: Yeah. Two points. I'm assuming in one of our tactics will be to leverage a survey. And if that's the case, then I want to make sure that we can differentiate the voice of business owners from the voice of residents. We want to be able to target the business community and understand that voice very specifically. And there's also -- as I'm looking at these bubbles and adding in a bubble for social media, it tends to reward the voice of people that are out there and involved. But it would be nice to have a tactic that shakes out the voice of people that we don't necessarily hear from frequently. So if we do use a strategy or a survey as a tactic, maybe we can put something in the Fountain Hills Times, which does get read on paper by a lot, an amazing lot of people. And it's not just digital. And we could put a QR code that encourages people to go hit the survey, or maybe we put a notice in the town's letter. They send out a little magazine every period -- quarterly, I think. I don't want to neglect that community that may be a little more silent. Make sure to shake them out a little bit. GARMAN: That's the bane, you know. I've done survey research before, and it's exactly that. The people that respond to surveys -- if you have a 100 people and 20 people respond, is that what all 100 was thinking? You know, there could have been 60 of the other 100 who just didn't respond who think totally differently. KEEFE: Yeah. GARMAN: So it's a whole science bearing that. KEEFE: And at some point, people get what they get, if they don't put their voice out. But we can at least try to shake it out. GARMAN: But you just said, I mean, the QR code and things like that in the newspaper. That's awesome. HOENLE: Well, there could be an insert in the newspaper too for those that don't know what a QR code is or don't know how to utilize it. Like an insert in the paper. And I think we have to count on the service organizations and the media, like the newspaper, to help us out with this rather than, well, it's going to cost you this much per insert and Page 18 of 26 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 28, 2023, STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING all of this. We need to be able to help negotiate that a little bit and so they can help us with this data gathering. But I think that -- I agree with you. I think the newspaper is an excellent resource to get something in their hands that they can just fill out, pop it back in the mail without a lot of hassle. GARMAN: That's great. HOENLE: And by the way, as far as going to fairs and events and having a booth, I just picture myself, when I'm walking through the art fair, going "don't bug me". I mean, to sit there or to stand there and talk with somebody about what's going on in Fountain Hills, and to get opinion, I know its maybe a small part of the outreach, but I think it diminishes the effectiveness in an event like that, because people are there for other reasons. Whether it's the 4th of July or a art fair or whatever it might be, it's almost a disruption in their social happiness of doing something besides work or dealing with their children, whatever the case is they got. KEEFE: Right. HOENLE: So. GARMAN: All right. Thanks for that. So the goal is, we're off for the summer, off for July. We come back in August, and you know if we socialize this appropriately so that if you all have something up on here that you are passionate about, that you think will work, that you think you can help lead, maybe you grab a partner and we have a work group and you launch off on it. And I think, with us, we can create those work groups; we have so much expertise to make those work. And some of them we don't think are useful and we won't do. I'm not saying we have to do all of them. Just trying to throw a bunch of things on the paper, and we'll get rid of the ones that we don't think will work. Or we'll launch on things this year and some of them will work and some of them won't be that great. Well, guess what? We have time next year. We can reconvene and deselect those and select new ways to try to get people's opinions. So thank you for that. And be thinking as we go through here, then, what type of work group would you like to be on. You knew the ask was coming. So when we come back Page 19 of 26 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 28, 2023, STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING here, when I talk to you next time, specifically when we come back in August, we're ready to go forth and do great things on some of these topics. Geoff? YAZZETTA: Yeah. Just to Jill's point about getting to the people that may not be active. I'm the civic affairs chair for the FCCA, and I'm working on updating the contact sheet for all the different nonprofits, other service organizations, interest groups, whatever they may be. So when it comes time to start getting rubber on the road here with these efforts, we will have a contact sheet. So we'll be able to reach out to the point person -- hey, can you get this out to your network and it's a personal appeal from that person -- which, hopefully, will make those individuals that aren't active in other places, they see that and like, oh, hey, yeah, I'll fill out the survey, or I'll come to this town hall event, whatever it may be. So we'll be able to get the word out far and wide in that regard. GARMAN: Yeah. Jill? KEEFE: You know, it brings to mind a question of when will we know we've gotten enough voice? Let's think about and say some words about what enough is and where we feel like we have the correct amount of input and saturation of coverage of opinions across the town. Is it 20 people or is it 30,000 or somewhere in-between? It's a worthy question. GARMAN: Do we have -- BECK: Hey, Patrick? GARMAN: Yeah. Hey, Kevin. Go ahead. BECK: Hey. I had a thought or two and first off, can you hear me okay? There's probably a delay, but can you hear me? GARMAN: Yeah. Actually, Kevin, we can hear you really good. Go ahead. BECK: Wow. Good. 5o just my thoughts on this. In listening to everybody -- which everything is excellent. I totally applaud the small groups first. I think you were asking that, and you know, that gets you more things, more exposure into the community by doing that than being all one. And one thing I learned years ago -- and business does this, and Design of Six Page 20 of 26 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 28, 2023, STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING Sigma, voice of customers, so forth -- there's a lot of strategic thought to that. But the three things that got me is keep it simple, know what you want to ask ahead of time, and let the people talk. And it's amazing because if you go out with a set of questions, three questions, right, that are very general open-ended and ask an opinion, people will give you much more a lot of times versus having to almost to fight or kind of ram them. And also it gives all of the groups involved a chance to see what you're asking. So for instance, let's say we've got two people working on the environmental part. Maybe we first put together three questions that are open-ended or four questions that we think are important. We share that with the group. We share that with everybody in the commission and get some feedback. And at least we come back and we have kind of a random understanding of what we -- at least what we think we want to know. And from that, I think, we'll get a lot more innovation from some of the people we ask if it's just open-ended and letting them talk. I found that to be true. Just a thought. GARMAN: I know. It sounds like you have a lot of experience, Kevin, to bring to the table. BECK: Unfortunately. No, no, no. Unfortunately on this, yeah. It's not a fortunate thing, believe me. But I think it's -- that part is good. I think being in groups, doing the homework ahead of time would give us a lot. And the social media, I mean, that's excellent what Phil and Geoff and you were talking about. That's kind of the bringing it together and saying, okay, here's what we want to talk about; here are the three or four questions that are important. We'II probably get more, but this is what we definitely will try to get, either the 20,000 voices like Jill was saying or not. And at least that's a gameplan, you know? GARMAN: Um -hum. Yep. BECK: Yeah. GARMAN: I was hoping -- and I'll get to you next, Geoff -- is that we kind of launch on this in August and start planning it. And at least the initial goal is to try to get something done. The initial goal, like, before the Christmas holidays, we start getting information either before Christmas or just after Christmas, because we have to spend time Page 21 of 26 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 28, 2023, STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING analyzing what data we get. I think that will take a little bit of time to try to distill out what we then -- because were going to have to look at the information that we receive and distill it through our biases, our filters. And that's where we're going to earn our paycheck here. I wonder, Jill, as I'm thinking back on your question too, about the end result, how many people? I'm wondering, sometimes it's time too. We do the best we can with the time we have, and then when the time runs out we move on. That's part of it. But yeah. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Geoff? YAllETTA: Yeah, I was just going to ask. Do we have any metrics on how many people filled out the survey? I'm sure we can pull that information. And how many events did we host or how many different organizations did we reach to, just so that that way we have kind of a, I guess, a baseline for how we want to conduct outreach and what we think an adequate number of people responding or providing feedback would be for us in this upcoming iteration of the plan? GARMAN: Yeah. We can look and see what we've done in the past. Definitely, I know, Vision Fountain Hills last one was around 900, I think, there was replies. So the town did one last year. But just know, there's, like, volumes of research on surveys on how many, and that's, like, way beyond. But we do have historical precedents with the town, not just the SPAC, on doing surveys and how many numbers of people respond, for sure. But those will be your responsibility, if we had a work group that was going to work on a survey, go out, do great things, come back, and tell us all the great things you've done. Okay. Dave, I kind of excluded you to a certain extent here, but I wanted to make sure to hear your comments as well. TRIMBLE: The only thing I was going to comment on, one of the items on the board is an executive -work -type session, and I'm not sure what you had in mind for that. But I was just going to -- kind of a little warning up front on -- there's kind of a legal definition there with the open meetings laws with the council and stuff. So there's certain criteria Page 22 of 26 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 28, 2023, STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING under the way they currently do true executive sessions. It has to meet certain criteria; like, you have to be giving legal advice. So the town attorney would be giving confidential legal advice or human resources personnel type stuff would satisfy that. That's a state statute. Maybe you had something different in mind, but I just wanted to throw that out there as early in the process, so you didn't go down a path and then have somebody go, yeah, you can't really do that. If the idea was to kind of get it without being in the public eye, if there's a quorum, then it pretty much has to be public unless it meets some of these certain criteria, like I mentioned, legal -- GARMAN: Yeah. TRIMBLE: -- advice or something like that. So just that. But other than that, I was going to comment too on the -- Amanda Jacobs, she coordinates the fair. If you wanted to have somebody at the town boot, Economic Development Director Jacobs coordinates that. And yeah, to Phil's point, it's kind of hit and miss from what you may or may not get there. I know, currently, staff that's been down there and the volunteers that have kind of manned the booth, a lot of times their biggest customer is wanting to know where the restrooms are. So that's -- GARMAN: Yeah. TRIMBLE: But again, if you're just trying to get a broad cross-section, it would be one datapoint. So I think that's all I have. GARMAN: Thanks. TRIMBLE: Thank you. GARMAN: Jill, did you have anything? KEEFE: I did. Two thoughts. Regarding the fair, that's really good feedback. I can't really envision effectively drawing meaningful feedback from people when they're flying by a booth. What I would hope for is that we could bring awareness that there is such a thing as a strategic plan and it is in the process of being updated. And here's how you get your voice heard. So it's more of a advertising whatever the vehicles are going to be to get people's voices in. It's a great way to get folks that aren't in clubs, aren't on social Page 23 of 26 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS TUNE 28, 2023, STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING media. Everyone loves the fair. So thank you for that. It would be a great way to push a QR code into people's hands, right? But second topic. This word, "reaffirm", has being hanging me up. And it sounds a little bit like leading the witness, that these four pillars are our four pillars, right? And that may not be the case. And so there's a vision for the town that sits on top of these strategic priorities, and those pillars are to hold up that vision. I think the question is, are our strategic priorities comprehensive in achieving that vision? And are they reflective of the town's values and what -- who we're trying to be as a town? And maybe there's a fifth pillar in there that we're not thinking of. So I want to caution us as we're going into this, that it's not a rinse and repeat, necessarily. We have to enable people to tell us something we didn't hear before. I know you know that but wanted to get it said. GARMAN: And I hope that — I mean, that would lead a little bit of, for want of a better word, excitement over the next year, right, if we don't just hear the same thing over and over again. Right? Be careful what you wish for, right? That's also one. Bernie? HOENLE: Yeah. And we didn't have just four pillars before. So that is changeable. So -- GARMAN: Okay. I appreciate that. I was taking notes furiously, and I'll be able to produce some more, like, guiding documents for us to help us. I think because we have more than one, we're all volunteers, so I'm definitely aware that I don't want to pile work on us over the next year. I am cognizant of that. I think some of us -- this plan goes out to 2026/'27 when it's due. I mean, I have two kids in high school who will be halfway through college when that happens; it's hard to imagine. So that's why I want to take a bite of the apple, like, one at a time, and just do this year, and then reorganize, and then we'll look at the next year. And we'll get there at the end of the day. So I want to make sure that it's manageable going into next year as well. So what I'll be asking for you, I think, if we have maybe three groups of two. But that's if we have 100 percent participation, right? So I'll work through that this summer and Page 24 of 26 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 28, 2023, STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING with Geoff, and I'll be interested in your comments as well. And the goal is that we come back in August and assign some of these, because some of them, like we said, we don't think are that important. Some of them we do think are important, but we create those work groups, assign a topic, and then they can move on and come back the next month and tell us what progress they've had. Okay? All right. Thank you for everything today. I appreciate all the comments. And please keep them coming. I'm trying to be constructive and helpful in all of that. And give us guidance so that we can plan our lives and kind of know where we should be as far as this volunteer position is, come next year this time. Okay. All right. We mixed agenda items. I think that was basically agenda item 7 and agenda item 8. We really don't want to hear any more comments from me; that's agenda item 9. So looking to my left, to my right, I think we'll just move on to the next meeting date. As you all know we are not going to meet in July. We'II meet again on August 23rd, before the Labor Day weekend, right? So I hope everybody enjoys the summer. I know it's warming up right now, and I don't know if you know where I live; it's pretty smoky. We've been watching the Diamond Fire as it moves across and into McDowell. Okay. Again, any further comments before I ask for a motion to adjourn? Okay. So hearing no comments, I note there's any motions on the table -- KEEFE: Oh, I'm sorry. I did have a comment. GARMAN: Yeah, Jill. KEEFE: This is really well thought out, and I appreciate it so much. I'm really looking forward to next year and doing this work, and I appreciate the sensitivity to our time. But that said, we came here to work and are glad to do it. Thank you. GARMAN: Hooah. Sorry. Thats' an army term. Do you understand that, Bernie? HOENLE: Yeah, I think so. KEEFE: Hooah? GARMAN: Hooah's army. He was air force. All right. Motion on the table as far as adjournment of the meeting? Page 25 of 26 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 28, 2023, STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING YAllETTA: I'll move to adjourn. KEEFE: I'll second. GARMAN: A second. Any discussion on adjournment? Looks like everybody's good today. All in favor of adjourning the meeting say aye. ALL: Aye. GARMAN: Any opposed say nay. KEEFE: Aye. GARMAN: Thanks, Kevin. It was unanimous. Thank you all very much. We'll see you in August. KEEFE: Bye-bye, guys. GARMAN: See you, Kevin. Page 26 of 26 Having no further business, Chairman Patrick Garman adjourned the Regular Meeting of the Fountain Hills Strategic Planning Advisory Commission held on June 28, 2023, at 4:58 p.m. ATTEST AND PREPARED BY: ngelaPlidg spiritu, Executive Assistant CERTIFICATION TO - ' u F FOU LIAIN HILLS hairman I hereby certify that the foregoing minutes are a true and correct copy of the minutes of the Regular Meeting held by the Strategic Planning Advisory Commission of Fountain Hills in the Town Hall Council Chambers on the 28th day of June 2023. I further certify that the meeting was duly called and that a quorum was present. DATED this 23 Day of August 2023. 1,1 Angela P Tad irihf, Executive Assistant